Like The Dog You Are
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Summary: "The Legion gets New Vegas, The Courier gets Boone as a prize." Written for the Fallout Kink Meme.


The stare went beyond hateful. It was an unyielding, white-hot look that seared through skin, burned through muscle and burrowed until it found the little black worm of guilt that _should _have roiled around in her stomach.

There was nothing there though. Nothing to indicate that there was a thin shred of basic decency left in her, a tiny speck of joy and light and warmth. If he cut her open right now, all he'd see was blood that pumped solely, it seemed, to generate money at the expense of everything else.

She'd handed over the keys to the metaphorical door just like that – a cool, clinical transaction under the shade of a billboard by the highway, the sound of money changing hands underpinning a low conversation, a handshake and the signing of paperwork. He knew this because he was there. Bound and gagged and blindfolded, yes, but there as a blinded witness and, ultimately, a gift to her.

There had been another two days of stumbling along in the muffled darkness, kicks aimed at his ankles when he stumbled, jabs at his throat when he spoke. He spoke often, veering wildly between shouting with fury and doing his best to plead sense into her, until the constant retaliation this earned him caused his voice to crack, then splinter away into nothing. Here and now, stripped of his voice and denied freedom of movement, he stared at her.

She ignored him.

When they had arrived at the Legion safehouse, she'd been quite specific about how he was to be treated. Keep his hands and feet shackled together. Free his mouth but strike him if he attempted to bite. Uncover his eyes. Pour water down his throat, then place him on the bed and then leave them alone unless she called for assistance.

He had braced himself for cruelty and instead was being tortured by inaction, a solid day of being almost invisible save when a babyfaced Legion recruit manhandled him outside to piss and shit. She alternated between carefully reading and rereading through the sheaf of papers on her knee or repairing the delicate servos inside a power fist, giving no indication of being aware that he was even there. When he tried to shout and only produced the faintest grating wheeze did she even look up and acknowledge him.

"Are you hungry?"

He only stared and mouthed an obscenity.

"You should probably eat something. Never know when a meal is going to be your last, right?"

She shuffled the papers a little and set them down on the desk, turning a little to face him directly. Courier matched him stare for stare, eyes locked and unblinking until he broke first and looked away.

"I'll get you something to eat. Sit tight," she said softly, giving no indication she was aware of the irony in her statement.

–

She returned a few scant minutes later, holding a plate of something hot and delicious. His silent, betraying mouth watered at the scent and he hated himself for it. A different Legion recruit followed her into the room and dragged a crate over by the bed, a broad smirk painted on his face. Boone's palms itched and he dug his nails into his skin hard enough to draw blood, desperate to fight and scratch and claw at the recruit's eyes.

She finished cutting up the unidentified slab of cooked meat, pausing after she'd completed to hand the cutlery to the recruit and taking a moment to slip her hand into the power fist. The motors hummed gently as she flexed her fingers and, satisfied that all was working as it should, brusquely told the recruit to leave.

"Now," she said conversationally as she pushed the crate a little closer and sat down, "If you try to fight, I'll punch your jaw right out of its socket. If you try to bite me, I'll knock out your teeth."

He watched her, eyes bright and hateful. His stomach, ever traitorous, growled. It had been three days since he'd last eaten, and even then barely a meal fit for the title. Stale dry noodles and lukewarm water, eaten on the move. He'd been halfway between the 188 and Helios One when he'd been ambushed on the highway, and since then he'd inhabited a hungry, hollow world without substance.

He thought about clamping his jaw tight, or lunging forward and seeing how much pressure he could exert when his teeth snapped together around her fingers. Instead he meekly accepted a piece of hot, seared meat when she rubbed it against his lips. For a moment he was terrified that it might be human, but the familiar taste of Brahmin meat quelled that panic as soon as it began.  
He barely chewed, hunger forcing his hand as he swallowed quickly, almost choking as it snagged at the back of his throat. She patted his shoulder, then picked up another cube of meat. Again she rubbed it against his lips, and again he opened his mouth like a dog begging for scraps.

"Eat slowly," Courier said. "Might as well savour it."

She gradually fed him the entire plate of meat, until finally he doubled over as pain lanced across his distended stomach. His gut, unaccustomed to the sudden over-abundance of protein, rebelled and threatened to leave him vomiting all over himself. Courier rubbed what part of his back she could reach, an oddly soothing, intimate action. He tensed and his eyes flicked to the heavy weight of the power fist resting in her lap. If he could just...

"Don't even think about it," Courier said, the rhythm of her hand on his back unceasing. Her voice grew a little flinty. "Don't think my affection for you and your unfortunate position would stop me in any way from beating you bloody, Boone."

They sat in silence until he awkwardly shrugged her hand off his body, trying to sit up as far as the short chain between his shackled limbs would allow. She sat back a little, then finally retreated to her chair on the other side of the room. He tried to speak, but Courier only turned her back on him and went back to reading those damnable papers.

–

He dozed, only surfacing back to wakefulness when the constant shuffle of paper ceased. Courier settled back on the crate, watching him carefully.

"You're to be transferred to the barge at Cottonwood Cove tomorrow," she said, her voice low. He wished he could see her face better, but the only source of light was behind her on the other side of the room. "I expect you're going to be executed. Slow or mercifully quick, I don't know."

The hydraulic jack on her power fist made a smooth hiss as she curled and uncurled her fingers. "I suppose I could make a request on your behalf. They owe me more than a few small mercies at least."

Boone tried to speak, tried to tell her what a whore she was. How she'd laid back and spread her legs and fucked over every man and woman for just a few more caps. His mouth moved but all he heard was a trickle of silence, and he shook with impotent rage, furious that he couldn't shout and yell and wrap his hands around her throat and choke the life out of her.

"I got the gist of most of that." She gave him a small, tight smile, then sobered almost immediately. "I'm not going to justify myself to you, _murderer_."

She almost spat the last word. Boone lunged forward, fuelled solely by anger and adrenaline, yet barely able to move before there was an explosion of pain in his shoulder and he was bodily slammed backwards, head cracking against the solid concrete wall.

–

When he came to she was on the other side of the room, directing two Legionaries to force his dislocated shoulder into place.

"And do it properly," she added as an afterthought. "Don't fuck about."

The sensation of his shoulder grinding back into place was enough for him to grit his teeth hard enough to feel the edge of a molar crack and crumble, and he took pleasure in spitting the gritty mix in his mouth at the closest Legionary.

Courier allowed the Legionary to get in only a few sharp punches to Boone's ribs and kidneys before she called him off with a rebuke, sending them both away with a warning to stay attentive.

Silence fell over the room, thick and heavy. Finally she sighed and took up her seat on the crate once more, mildly chastising him for forcing her to strike him. He stared fixedly at the far wall.

"I'm not sure why they decided to give you to me," she said, her voice as calm as though she was discussing trade routes with him. Like how they used to talk. "I don't really know what they were expecting me to do. I'm not interested in fucking you any more, and you've got nothing I need from you, and I don't need a vivid imagination to guess what you're mouthing at me."

Her tone softened a little. "If I didn't think you'd kill me the first night, I'd unlock you right now and ask you to follow me up into the Great Northwest. You always said you wanted to escape Nevada and start all over again. For a while you wanted to start all over again with me, but look how that turned out."

_I'd start all over again once I'd put you down like a dog_, he mouthed, infuriated to hear her only chuckle in response.

"I wouldn't expect anything less," she said, and reached over to scoop up a bottle of water. She held the bottle gently against his lips and he drank deeply, washing the tang of blood from his mouth. Her hand, the one not encumbered by pounds of machinery, was soft against his jaw.

–

He stood in the thin morning light, wrists more tightly bound than ever and his shoulder thrumming with a deep dull ache. Courier had injected him with Med-X, a last gentle mercy from someone he despised, and she'd whispered that she hoped his death was everything he wanted it to be.

She pressed a kiss to his forehead and watched the contubernia begin their march to Cottonwood Cove. When Boone had fought hard enough to be subdued with a knee in the small of his back and his face ground into the dirt, he caught a glimpse of Courier watching him impassively. She read his lips well enough – _like the dog you are_ – and winked.

–

Last he saw of her she was cresting a ridge and vanishing from sight.

Last he saw of anything was his intestines spilling garnet red in the afternoon sunlight, a snarled seething mass reaching for the earth from high atop his crucifix.

Last he felt of anything was the coyote tobacco sharp in his mouth as he threw his head back and laughed and laughed until the blackness became absolute.


End file.
